P90X Journey: Week 2 In the Books

P90X week two is officially in the books after yesterday. Week one came in kinda like a lamb with the workouts, but week 2 I really kicked up the intensity. As you may remember, in week one I was unable to actually complete the workouts in full. Talk about epic fail. If it weren't for the fact that I had lost 7 pounds, it may have been a major setback in my mental aspect of training. And that's what really fueled me for the week 2 road ahead.

As I started into week two, coming off the emotional high that I had lost so much weight, I was really looking forward to so good hard workouts. Monday, was an early morning 3 mile run. I took that one pretty easy, but even in that, I marked each mile and got subsequently faster on each split. Tuesday was chest and back day, for this one I really worked hard. So hard, I went to complete exhaustion. I lowered the weights, and went for total quality on each and every exercise. Focusing on form. The same held true with AB Ripper X. Did get the full 25 on several exercises, but my form was good on the ones I was able to do. And mason twists, my arch enemy exercise.......30. I had to stop at 23, but I was able to bang out 7 more after a little rest.

Wednesday, I got out for my morning run. I set the tempo nice and easy, but found myself going faster and faster. It was weird. Negative splits again. ended up running around 8:15/mile by the end of the run. Not sure where that was coming from, because lately it's been a struggle to get the legs moving at anything but a slow speed. Maybe it's the decreased weight loss that's making me faster....who knows. All I know, it's really hard to get out of bed in the AM, but I'm still doing it.

Thursday was shoulders and arms. One of my personal favs in the P90X library. I absolute love working biceps. Big fan here. Again, I worked to exhaustion. I push so hard, my arms were screaming for a little Results and Recovery drink post workout. Well, they got their wish because they earned it.

Friday was my designated off day. Slept in till 6am, and that was such a nice reprieve. Saturday I did another 3 mile run. This time, the splits were even faster then the previous 2 runs. Again, not sure where this is coming from, but I like it.

Sunday is my designated longer run. Sunday morning, I didn't feel all that great. Not sure if it was too much coffee or what, but boy....My body was having some disagreements with me. So, needless to say I didn't run in the morning. By 2pm, I was totally dreading lacing up my shoes. But I went ahead anyways. My son was really pushing me to get going because he wanted to ride alongside. So lace up the shoes I did and we started out on the 3 mile loop. Once I got going my legs really felt in tune, and my body started to feel better. Totally crazy! At my normal turning point of the 3 mile loop, I made the decision to take it a little longer....and so I lengthened my run, and turned up the speed while my son road on home. I cranked up the gear to about an 8 min/mile pace. In all, I ran 3.8 miles. Not as long as I had initially intended on the grand schedule, but longer the the 3 miles my brain had settled upon. And when I got back and took a shower afterwords, I felt like a million bucks.

And that takes me to this morning. I got up at 4:15am to get ready for my 5am run with my running partner. Well, shocking news here, my running partner decided to bag the workout (again with another lame excuse) and not show up. So, what did I decide to do....Well, I kept it close to home by doing quarter mile hill repeats. The uphill segments I ran in around 1:45s. The downhill back, I ran in 1:41 as my fastest. Yeah, that's between a 6:40 and 7 min/mile pace. HELL YAHS!!! I kept telling myself during the workout, as Paul slept in, I was getting stronger, with each and every step. And I kept throwing in there, LAST CHANCE WORKOUT!!!! Yes, yelling at myself Biggest Loser Style!! Why??? Because today is day 15. It's weigh in Monday to see how much weight I had lost over the last week. And with each beep of the scale I kept wondering in my head if I could trhow down another 7 pounds. Well, it wasn't a 7, but it was an equally good 3. Today I weighed in at 196 pounds. That's a total weight loss of 10.4 pounds over 2 weeks, or 5.2 pounds per week. Not too shabby in my mind. And let me just tell you, this was a difficult week in training my diet. Holy crap have I been having cravings!! Probably one of the worst weeks ever. Seriously, I think that pizza commercials were put on TV to torture me. And then there's all the beer ads during football playoffs. DAMN YOU!!! And wine.....COME ON MAN!!! And finally, it was that late night run to Walgreens to get the kids some poster board to make fund raising signs for a community garage sale. Seriously....did EVERY candy have to be on sale that night. Well, I passed the test. I didn't buy any candy. I didn't buy any beer or alcohol. I didn't eat a truck load of pizzas. Not even a single whiff. It was a huge test in what I'm going for. It just means that when I get to where I want to be, that I will have earned it. But in moderation. Right now is no time to take steps backwards. Right now I the time to keep taking steps forward. Progress to the body that I know I can have. I have to make short term sacrifices if I want to make long term goals. Yes, I can have Pizza again someday. But not right now. Yes, I will be able to throw down a cold one or a glass of wine. But not right now. I need to cleanse my body of all the daemons that got me to where I am. It's all about being healthy.

As I close this out, I remind everyone.....Do your best and forget the rest.....and BRING IT!!!!

2011 Is a New Year: P90X Week 1 Complete!

That's right, 2011 is a New Year with new goals. One of my goal is to take this fitness stuff serious. Why is it that I continue to let my mind take over and rule my non-activity? I don't know. But that's how the year ended. Making up all kinds of excuses as to why I shouldn't work out. I was at a high point closing out October, and was on a roll in November. But that sickness at Thanksgiving threw me a one two punch where I took several steps backwards. Mentally, I shut down the workout routines and got plain and simple lazy. Everything that I had worked so hard for the previous year, totally wiped out. I ate all of the wrong things, drank lots of alcohol, sodas, and started back onto the candy routine. My weight rapidly increased and I stopped looking at the scale. My wife saw the spiral that I was getting into, and she basically said enough is enough. You've got to get back into the habits and routines that you'd tried to establish before. She talked to another friend of mine who was doing P90X and he mentioned that, when you follow the diet religiously, that you will have amazing results.

Now, I love P90X. The workouts are amazing, but the diet for me, was really hard to follow. I didn't use any of the recipes, and I thought I could do it myself being the super smart engineer that I was. It's just food right. Well, my wife, after her talk with Jason, was dedicated in helping me achieve my goals. 206.4 was not anywhere either one of us wanted me to be. My problem is, when I'm inactive.....I gain weight. I look at a doughnut, I gain 5 pounds from the smell of all those carbs in it. That's just how my body rolls. And speaking of rolls.....well.....Yes, I was starting to get that fat belly. Not cool in a bathing suit. So, on Saturday Jan 1st, my wife and I sat down and we went through page by page of the Nutrition Guide. We first determined my daily calorie calculation. We settled on the low end of Level 2 for phase 1 which was 2400 calories. We used the portions to come up with that first week menu. Sure it was a lot of work. But when we went through all of the ingredients to build a shopping list, we were pretty surprised at how much we already on hand. Sure I didn't have egg whites, things like that. As I said before, I followed the diet, but I used my engineering judgment. Instead of doing 8 egg whites, I use 4 eggs. Volume is about the same. Unfortunately, the fat count is NOT!

So January 3rd, I started my next round of P90X with an emphasis of leaning out and losing about 30 pounds. I want to go from that nasty looking 206.4 to somewhere around 175. Honestly, that would be a GREAT weight for me. It's not near my lower threshold of being "healthy", but it's where I think I will be the most comfortable. I really don't think I will ever see that 143 number that comes up in calculations. But, 175 is also something I haven't seen win WELL over 20 years, and it's 3 pounds below the 178 upper range. So my first goal is to start there. When I get there, I know everyday things will be so much easier. Carrying 30 less pounds will have that effect.

That's where I come to the Week 1 results. Let me preface this by, WOW. It's amazing how much fitness you can lose in a 6 week period. Or should I say...DAYYYUMMMM!!!! I lost a LOT! Push-ups were hard. Pull Downs on my Bowflex dropped 20 pounds from where I was before. I didn't even make it through my first two workouts, and I was ridiculous sore after both of them. And as for running. I didn't get in as many days or miles as my mind had planned for. But with that, I followed the diet. Measuring and weighing EVERYTHING! I ate a hot breakfast of 8 egg whites with some varying flavor every morning. Spinach Scramble HIT. Cheese Scramble HIT! Every single recipe from the P90X library was AMAZING last week. Hunger cravings, non existent. I didn't come home and go through a half bag of chips. It's not on the plan. So it's not going into my body. I didn't have that nightcap of Cran-Apple Juice and rum, or wine. I haven't had a single soda. I've logged everyone of my meals and followed it to a T. And I am so happy to report that after week 1, my weight loss was damn near Biggest Loser Esque! I went from 206.4 to 199.0 in the first week! A whopping 7.4 pounds or 3.6%! That's HUGE!!! It's a major victory for both Body and Mind. So much so that I have totally ramped up my efforts in week 2. Hit both target runs so far. ROCKED my chest and back workout. ROCKED AB Ripper X afterwords. I totally cannot wait to see how the weight loss progresses for week 2. Will I have that dreaded Week 2 Biggest Loser curse with a low number, or will I pull through and continue with the home run that I knocked out of the park last week. Stay Tuned!!!!

Marathon Training Week #2 - Off to a Rough Start

Week #1 was in like a lion, and out with a bang. I didn't get in as many miles as I had done the previous week, but that was mainly do to a distinct lack of time more then anything. I did, however, have a GREAT group of workouts, so it was not a failure by any stretch of the imagination. In all, I had almost 31 miles. That's just over 3 miles sort of what I did the previous week, but I managed to do that without a Sunday run yesterday. That's the part that's HUGE. Had I had the time to run for the hour and a half, I would have logged 42 miles. Again, not a failure at all. Especially when you look a the quality.

Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 3.5 miles / P90X+ Weights & Abs Ripper X
Wednesday - 4 miles / 4 miles
Thursday - 5.6 miles / P09X+ Weights & Ab Ripper X
Friday - 6.5 miles to include 5x800m repeats at sub 3:45 splits
Saturday - 10K plus 1/2 warm up and cool down, Total of 7.2 miles

To call that a disappointment would be crazy. I am not going to complain about that kind of output. Especially, when I go out on a Friday evening after work, blast out 5x800m exceeding my goals, only to come back early Friday morning for a 10K run and do that in 56:23. On a ridiculously hilly course. AMAZING. The main question is, how do I feel. Well, actually, I feel great. I feel stronger then I have in a very long time. There's not been any soreness in my legs whatsoever. I've been using my hot tub in the evenings to open up the pours and get the junk out of the legs. I've been doing so X-Stretch along the way to keep limber. This week, now that there is a lull in the kids baseball schedule, I'll get my P90X Yoga workouts back on the schedule to get even more flexibility into these legs!

In all, it was a great workout, and so far, I'm loving the progress in my running. Well, that was until the disaster of last nights attempt to sleep. What a joke. By 12;30 PM I had succumbed to the fact that I wasn't going to be running in the AM. It is what it is. I was angry after a pathetic showing of my Arizona Cardinals, in a must win division game that, I as a season ticket holder, attended. I was angry at the lack of heart showed on the field. I was angry in the lack of focus on the field. And most of all, I was angry at how these professional athletes have forgotten some of the most basic aspects of the game. Some would say I take it too hard. Maybe I do. I have high expectations, since I pay a good chunk of change in Money and Time to make the 2 hour trip from Tucson to go watch a game. When they lose like they lost on Sunday, it just makes that 2 hour trip back even that much longer. So, anyways, I've got to get my workouts in this evening, and hopefully, after a good restful night of sleep, I'll be able to come out refreshed tomorrow and lay the schmack down on some pavement!!!

Remember, strength is built by how you respond to adversity. You can crawl into a corner, or you can face it head on and beat it into submission. I choose to face it head on! Keep Pushing Play and BRING IT!!!!

The Start of my next 90 Day Adventure.

So as my "rest" week came and went by in a FLASH. I managed to log 34 miles of running for the week and finished SUPER STRONG with an 11 mile run on Sunday...

Yesterday, I officially started Round 3 of my P90X adventure. With anything, in order to finish successfully, you must have a plan. That includes building a house, starting a business, and even your P90X exercise workout plan. So, on Sunday, I spent the afternoon, going through my nutrition guide, and mapping out the next 30 days of eating habits. I broke down everything into the recommended groups, and then went through the list of foods to come up with a meal plan for the week. On my previous 90 days, I didn't really lose a lot of weight. In fact, I think overall I gained a couple of pounds. I didn't really do phase 1 of the eating plan, I stayed in phase two for the first 60 days, built some crazy muscle, and then went into phase 3.

This round, I'm going back to the basics. I'm going to start with the Fat Shredder phase, and really get the most out of the plan. At my 201.6 pounds, they recommend that I eat a 3000 calorie diet. Wha wha what?? Yes, you heard it right, 3 THOUSAND CALORIES. Well....I did that the first time, and I couldn't actually put that much food in my stomach during the day. So, I'm going to stick to the level 2 guidelines that put me around 2400 calories, still adhering to the 50/30/20 ratios of Proteins/Carbs/Fats respectively. To be totally honest, I need to lose some of that fat that I've gained over the past 15-20 years. Especially looking at the "after" pictures on Day 180 and me still having that same 'ol belly. Sure, it's smaller, but it's not GONE!

Well, in order for me to reach my next goal, of running a half marathon in under 1:40 minutes (beating my current personal best of 1:41), I need to shed 15-25 pounds. And right now, it's a plain and simple caloric deficit scenario. So, based on my caloric needs, I need about 2000 calories to sustain myself every day. (Weight * 10 gives you a BMR). That's the energy it takes to pump your blood, walk around throughout the day, breathe, and sleep. Next, I know you have have about a 3500 calories burn to lose 1 pound of fat. I also know that running I burn about 150 calories per mile when I run. So here's the quick scenario. Furthermore, P90X+ workouts expend about 500 calories per workout. I've seen as much as 600, but for my body, my heart rate monitor says ~500.

(2000 calories *7 day) + (150 * 35 miles wk) + (500 calories * 6) = 22,500 calories burned during the week.

2400 calorie diet * 7 days = 16,800 calories taken in.

That's a net weight loss of 1.5 pounds/week over the course of the next (at least) 8 to 12 weeks. Later on in the training program, as I ramp up my mileage, I'm going to have to up my calorie counts. But for now, this is what I intend to lose. My hope is that I can lose the full 18-22 pounds of fat along the way. If that goal holds true, I should be ~175-180 pounds on race day.

Now, the engineer in me also likes to equate how excess weight reduces your running times. Right now, I'm running my speed work sessions at an 8 min/mile for half mile repeats. They were faster, but I'm using 8 as my target. That's approximately a 1:47 half marathon. Knowing that my goal is sub 1:40, how will the lower weight help get me there. Well, studies have shown that the reduction of every pound equates to approximately 2 seconds per mile. If I was to lose 20 pounds by race day, that would equate to approximately 40 seconds/mile. That's a 7:20 min/mile. That equates to a 1:36 half marathon, and therefore meeting my goal of a sub 1:40!

So, now that I have my plan, it's time to EXECUTE and use P90X to get me to where I want to be!!!!!! Be sure that you click the follow button on the right hand side so that you can get updates as I post my results from each week here. BRING IT!!!!

P90X Rest Week

What??? Rest??? P90X?? Are you crazy??

I'm sure those are the questions that are running through everyone's mind right now. Especially since the X in P90X stands for X-Treme!! Well, the fact is.....Yes, in P90X there is a variation of a "rest" week in your workout routine. No, you don't take the entire week off. That wouldn't be very x-treme now would it. Basically, what it means is that you do a subset of workouts for a week, that will allow your muscles that you've worked so hard (in this case for the past 4 week) get some down time to recover. There are no weights this week, but there is a LOT of Yoga, Stretch, Core, and Cardio.

And by cardio, I mean foot pounding mileage. As a runner, and as I've stated before, you have to log those miles. Since my weekend was hellishly filled with Baseball and Football games, where we left at o'dark early, I did all of my 25 miles during my Monday thru Friday runs. And because I took those two days off last week, this week has started out to be more of the same. On Monday, when I headed out the door, I wasn't feeling all that fresh. I was tired from Sunday, and to be honest, was a tad dehydrated and hung over. Yes, I overindulged in the Adult Beverages on Sunday. But I knew I had to get out the door and just put one foot in front of the other. Well, after my planned 3.5 mile run, it was still plenty early since I started out at 5am, and I was actually feeling pretty good! So, instead of finishing my run by making the turn into my neighborhood, I set out on a trek to check out the new I-10 interchange that is going to open in less then 2 weeks. I wanted to see how far it was to there anyways, and I hadn't been on it in several weeks. Come to find out, it's exactly a mile and a half to the other side of the interstate at which time I made the turn around and headed back home. Total mileage, 6.5. Yesterday, I made the choice to sleep in till 6am, go vote, and head into work. My plan was to run 5.6 miles after work once I picked the kiddos up from school. I got home, threw on the running clothes and headed out the door. It was an absolutely perfect day for running. About 3 miles into the run I made the choice that I was going to extend it. I was in a zone, and running about an 8:40 pace. I made the turn up the hill on Wade Rd, and ran some rolling hills through Continental reserve. I finished with 7.5 miles, and I felt absolutely AMAZING!!!

So today's run I knew was going to be a tough one, since I had run in the evening the day before. But I also knew that if I slept in, that Paul would show up and give me a substantial amount of crap for being weak. So I could not let that happen. I rolled out of bed and met Paul at 5am. And thankfully he showed up, because my legs were saying...Oh no you di'int! But, we persevered and did a nice easy 3 mile clean up run. Paul had run 8.6 with the group Tuesday AM, so he needed the same kind of clean up run.

So, in all, I've put 17 miles on my legs in the first 3 days of the week. Today is also a much needed X-Stretch. Can't wait to get me some stretch on! Again, something else my legs REALLY need!!!

On Monday I officially start my P90X+ journey to the Rock and Roll Half marathon on Sunday, January 16th. It will be 10 weeks from race day. Get ready to BRING IT!!!

Last Back and Biceps

Yesterday was yet another day of a double. In the morning, I met up with my running partner at 5am and we did a nice easy 3 mile run. This wasn't a run for distance or speed, it was just a nice and easy clean the junk out of the legs from the previous 3 days of effort. Sundays 9.5, Monday's 5.6, and Tuesdays 5.6 had left my legs tired and lackluster. But the key with running is consistency as I've posted before. And sometimes you just need a shorter run to get the blood flowing to the muscles.

After our quick run around the short loop, it was get my butt to work. Once work was over I picked up the boys, made my way home for my most favorite workout of all time.....P90X Back and Biceps. Absolutely LOVE that workout. Biceps are definitely the glamor muscles as Tony calls them. I'd have to agree. In my south end zone craziness, you'll always seem me showin' off the GUNS.....Well, before P90X they were kinda in that small pistol category. Well, after 2 rounds of P90X, and double the weight that I originally started with 170 days ago......I can now put them into the CANNON division. Not quite A-DUB style, but I'm damn proud of them at this point of my workout life. And the sad part of this whole story is that this is the last time I get to do this workout for quite a while. Who knows, maybe in my craziness of P90X+, I'll squeeze in a little Back and Biceps for some nostalgia. What makes it the greatest workout ever....In my opinion its the strip set as your very last exercise. You've just gone through close to an hour of double back, double biceps. You're SHOT. If you brought it, you've got nothing left in the tank already. The final strip set really shows you haw much of a man or woman you really are. Me, I like a good challenge. 4 reps of 8.....it's 32 curls. BRING THE 25s to start with!!! The last 3 were just willing those weights up. Then on to 22.5 with my BowFlex SelecTech Dumbbells. Again, the last three were just BURNING!!!! Then 20s. IT BUUUUUUUUURNS!!!! Finally, finished up with 17.5s. You'd think that 7.5 pounds lighter would be a huge recovery. It's NOT. And that's why I absolutely LOVE that workout. By the end, my arms were THROBBING! My shirt was drenched with sweat. I could barely make the X with the arms.

So when you say to yourself, how did you make yourself better today. Look deep inside your inner self, tell yourself I CAN....Don't say I can't. Remember, DO YOUR BEST AND FORGET THE REST!!!!

And down the stretch we come!!!!!

I am rapidly closing in on the end of my 2nd round of P90X. My journey has been one of resilience and strength. My first 90 days on my journey through P90X plus, there were a LOT of flaws. This round, I looked at the training plan and followed it to a T. I've hit every single planned workout, and replaced a few so that I could incorporate my love of running. As I've seen incredible gains, as I did just this past weekend, I felt a strength that I've never felt while out running. My Sunday long run, I planned a course that included some very serious hills. After the normal 3 mile route, I started making my way up the "Hill". Wade road is a gradual 1.5 mile long hill that peaks just towards the end of the run with a straight up beast of a hill. It's not the Mt. Lemmon marathon, but it's still nice and steep, and has always created a burn. Once at the very top, I get to make the right turn that's a long stretch of roller coaster style hills. Fall and roll down type steep on the down....seemingly steeper on the ups.....Once you've crested through roller coaster alley, I made the right hand turn for the nice easy dirt road decent back into the neighborhoods.

The thing about this course......It's advanced. It's the one that we normally run towards the end of marathon training. It's the one that proves you have the "it" factor. And yesterday I was amazingly STRONG!!! Normally, this is where I'd tell you how my back seized up. Normally I would tell you how I struggled but beat the hill. Yesterday was different. yesterday was 166 days in the making. Yesterday was all about RESOLVE. Resolve that I will NOT fall back into my old self ways. You know, that guy where you make the decision NOT to wake up at 4:15am when you alarm goes off for the morning run. Yah....Definitely not THAT guy. So much NOT that guy that I followed up yesterdays RUN with an AMAZING 6 mile run while my running partner snoozed his way to those old habits that I'm leaving behind.....

Life's all about the choices that you make every single day. Do you want to be STRONGER or do you want to sleep in and be soft. I choose to be stronger each and every day! There's NO WAY I'm going back to that 'old' life!